


six feet under

by josiebelladonna



Series: now it's dark [7]
Category: Anthrax (US Band), Bandom, Nuclear Assault (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, Childhood Friends, Childhood Memories, Childhood Sweethearts, Classical Music, Coming of Age, Dark Fairy Tale Elements, F/M, Folk Music, Forbidden Love, Framing Story, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Inspired by Music, Love at First Sight, New York City, Tragic Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:42:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 12,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27426628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/josiebelladonna/pseuds/josiebelladonna
Summary: Scott looks back on a forbidden, budding romance with fellow New York musician Kristina Mayfield, fifteen years following her passing in his spoken word tour on a special date in the northeast.
Relationships: Scott Ian/Original Female Character
Series: now it's dark [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1519889





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> a supplement to the dead of night~  
> inspired by miookumura’s fic darkness taking dawn (one of my absolute favorite fics ever) as well as scott’s recent instagram posts where he’s been showing us the old neighborhoods in queens and telling stories of growing up in such a blue-collar place.  
> dress warm when you’re reading this, too, like get under a blanket and grab a hot cocoa especially if it’s raining or snowing where you’re at right now: you will feel cold reading this.
> 
> _help, i lost myself again,  
>  but i remember you.  
> don’t come back, it won't end well;  
> but i wish you'd tell me to.”_  
> -“six feet under”, billie eilish

It's good to be here in Boston, the day following my birthday in a brand new year, and the snow is without shame or rhyme or reason of any sort. It's like the perfect setting, really—to be up here on this stage. I'm comfy, cozy, and bundled up here with a cup of coffee courtesy of Charlie.

Before I begin, I want to apologize to the people at the back for having to stand near the back doors: apparently the locks won't close all the way and thus there's a bit more than a draft coming in—if there was only a way I could mosey on over there and shove them closed with the back side of my foot, I would totally do it.

Now understand, I had written this down over the course of a few days, and so if anything sounds weird or doesn't make any sense, I'll try my best to explain it.

When I first wrote my first book, I underwent this process of putting myself in my own shoes, if you will. It wasn't so much “and then this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened...” but rather I looked at myself from a certain time period and tried to ruminate over that time period, over my thoughts, my feelings, and my motives at the time. For example, one rather infamous time period is the one around _Persistence of Time_ wherein we fired Joey and we brought in John.

Tons of upheaval in my life around then, between touring, writing and recording, my second divorce destroying my bank account, and my moving out to Los Angeles from New York City, it was not hard to see that I wasn't feeling too pleased with Joey's singing at the time. Up until then, he did it spot on. But with _Persistence_ , it just wasn't happening, and my whole thing about it is I wish I could go back and cut through the music industry nonsense to better connect with him, because he deserved to know. He deserved to be in a band like us, and he always has.

But Joey is just one example of that, of my peering through the looking glass at a certain time period of my life and how it's gone up to this point.

There was one that I received a question about around the time of _Volume 8_ , and it wasn't until recently when I received yet another question about it.

The first was “fellow New Yorker musician Kristina Mayfield has died but no one is suggesting foul play—so any thoughts?” And I didn't know what to think around then because Anthrax was still reeling from the fact we had become a quartet following Spitz's departure after _Stomp 442_ so I just said something trivial, like “aw, man, that's horrible! My condolences out to her family and friends.” And it wasn't until well after that interview when that very thought registered with me. Kristina had died.

I got a call from Danny telling me “Kristina's gone, dude—what's going on?”

I was rendered speechless to say in the least. It had been so long since I had seen her, too, like it felt like eons since we last spoke. I ran it by Frank and Charlie and they both broke down in tears in unison because she had touched that many lives there in New York City. When I was asked about it again, on the fifteenth anniversary of her death—which I found out took place on Day of the Dead, the first of November—I was given a demo tape of her second solo record. I was also given her pendant, one of those silver lined lockets with glass coverings so you can look inside to what's in there. Inside there's a white rose, and right it's here in my pocket.

I'm thinking when I'm done here I'll take the next boat out to Ellis Island, and go to where her ashes were spread by the Statue of Liberty, and lay it on the stone.

I shared it with Joey when we flew out to San Francisco to do that “What's in My Bag?” thing, and I could see it in his eyes. Much like with us and with thrash metal when he first joined, he had never heard of her but he had this soft look on his face like she touched him, even posthumously she touched his heart and soul.

I always likened her to a ghost of sorts because she had this real long platinum blonde hair down to her waist: she had this thick shock of black down the left side. She always put my hair to shame, especially when it started thinning. She never smiled much, if my memory rings true: she would always come to class with a stoic look upon her face and her guitar case slung over her shoulder. She had a real round soft face, like two moonbeams came together and made a person.

She played this gorgeous acoustic guitar, with a real rich deep red body, like the image of red wine comes to mind. She never messed with the body, except for this little white sticker of a teddy bear underneath the pick guard. She took great care of that guitar—it was always shiny and brand new looking when we first met her in music class.

Kristina always took her seat by the side door of the classroom, about five away from Danny and me. She never spoke much to anyone else in the room at the time.

We also had her in biology class later on in high school, the same class where Danny shared the word “anthrax” with me on the walk home—I think she had a recital that day because she missed that discussion.

When I finally was able to break into that exterior, I found someone delicate and precious, like a lighter, ghostlier version of Joey but there was something else. Something to her that made me want to have it, to protect it. I felt awful because I was awkward and gangly and... short, but she understood my angst, though. I felt awful that I had a crush on her and I also had my arm around my sweet heart at the time, but to say I was relieved by her being so considerate is the biggest understatement of my life. And so for me to open up about her, the story of a Jewish schoolboy from Queens crushing on a little ghost girl when thrash metal was beginning to plant its seeds in the gutters, was hard for me to come to terms with. And like I said, it's more about me digging into that state of mind at the time, as a sixteen year old boy with a crush that, at the time, I believed to be totally innocuous and silly. But with time, it blossomed into something.

Something that I'm both proud and afraid to talk about given what was going on in my life then.

I always felt awful for showing Joey the door, especially when the idea of a reunion tour even became part of people's lingo. There were even nights around the release of _Volume 8_ when I began to wonder about him, like how he was holding up out in the wilderness, alone most of the time and with a drum kit and a microphone at his helm. And so to see him seven years ago at the beginning of the reunion tour, as bright eyed and bushy tailed as ever, and with a _Master of Puppets_ shirt to boot was something I think all of us needed at the time. To see him still in one piece and still with those black curls of his down past his shoulders: it was something I needed to see for myself after all the short crispiness of the nineties.

But nothing hurts me more than knowing that she's gone and I never had the opportunity to bid her farewell, either. I also feel like I could have done something more with her, much like with Joey. To all of you in this room right now, given we're about a mile away from Harvard and Cambridge Universities: Kristina and I being together is to me as what Joey staying with Anthrax to his fans. Granted, we were kids back then, just still in high school, and I knew if I ever said all of this to Danny—Danny Lilker—I would never be able to talk about it to my mom, or my girlfriend at the time.

Consider yourselves lucky, Boston. This is a secret I have only shared with Pearl—I know that when he grows older and begins to wonder about things, be it the birds and the bees or even his own history, Rev will have to know about her, too. Even when I shared the tape with Joey on the plane, I was reticent to unload on him for obvious reasons. Frank and Charlie didn't even know about it—they only knew her as anyone else from the scene there in New York City.

She was a ghost, a solemn artist who walked alone with her guitar on her back and a love of things you wouldn't expect to come from her. You knew her but you also didn't. As much of an open book as she was a closed coffin. Innocent but also a longer. You loved her but you also couldn’t stand her because she drove you insane. She was like a blank canvas ready to be painted by the world at large.

An enigma.

No matter what happens to me in my life, I'll never forget her name, either—for as long as I live. She shone like the sliver of a moon on a cold night in Queens with everything she had. Everything and nothing. Always and never.

Forever Kristina.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _”when i cannot sing my heart  
>  i can only speak my mind...”_  
> -“julia”, the beatles

If my memory rings true, I met Kristina on the walk to school from my apartment complex there in the heart of Queens. It was like any old day in the first week of September, back when school actually started following Labor Day. The heat of the summer was starting to fade away and give way to those cold New York nights, and the trees were one rain shower away from having their leaves shift color and drift into the gutters. Something that absolutely beckoned a hot chocolate and a slice of that apple spice cake you’d get in the school cafeteria.

The first day of eighth grade and I had forgotten about brushing my hair before I left. My mom told me that if I wanted to look good for anyone, it would be my new teachers. Even though I promised her to do so, I still managed to forget about it because that’s what happens when you’re thirteen years old and still coming down from having your ass handed to you in seventh grade.

So the second I left the front step of that brick building and I felt the wind blow back the backside of my hair where it often got entangled the most, I stopped for a second to go back. But I decided not to because my mom was leaving for work soon and the last thing I wanted was to make her late as well as myself.

Add to this, Danny caught up with me right there on the sidewalk with this big goofy grin on his face. I hadn’t seen him all summer but I knew that leaving Queens for a few weeks in the real hot and swampy part of July did him justice.

I remember he asked me if I had a good summer and I confessed it was kind of boring save for the trip out to the Hamptons right after school let out.

“Oh, man, I was out by Niagara Falls for three weeks!” he told me. “It was so nice and cool out that way!”

“Well, you should’ve told me, my mom and I were going nuts here for the last couple of months.”

We walked about a block up that quiet narrow street towards our school, which was this good sized campus made of actual brick and mortar, exactly what you would expect from a blue collar neighborhood in Queens, and that was when I spotted her up the block, with that long blonde hair billowing behind her head like a curtain. Even then she was all round and pale: she wore this long lacy black skirt down to her knees and she had on a tight black blouse that hid the shape of her body. White as a ghost but donned in black for quite the contrast.

What caught my eye was that guitar case on her back. It was the same size as her but she didn’t let her faze her as she crossed the street. I noticed she also wore black low rise Chucks with that lacy skirt.

“Hey, Scott, you see that girl over there?” Danny asked me in a low voice.

“The one with the guitar case?”

And he said, “yeah. You don’t see that very much, do you?”

“Not at all,” I said.

I should take a moment here to mention this was right around the time Danny and I were discovering music, namely Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, Black Sabbath, and also the Ramones. We both found records in music stores and just followed our noses, so to speak. He and I both figured it was the path for the both of us to go, to follow the music.

And so to see her, to spot her up the street from us with that case slung over her shoulder, it tickled both our fancy.

When we got closer to her, I noticed her fingernails were long and this interesting shade of black, like they changed color when the sun hit them a certain way: Danny called them “black opal nails” from that point onward.

He and I went through that first day of school together—literally. I think there was one class we didn’t have together and that was gym. He had it right smack in the middle of the morning before our science class where I had right before lunchtime. But she was in my class, though. Granted, she was in the next room over with the girls but she was marked as being a part of the class, though.

I took my seat near the door so I could catch a glimpse of her across the hall in the next rec room. Given this was the first day, she still had on that skirt with those Chucks, but her case was missing. She sat there on that hard blue mat all by her lonesome: she wasn’t even sitting with the other girls.

In fact, now that I remember it correctly, I felt a little weary to speak to her, simply because she was such a lone wolf. But I was just drawn to that guitar case on her back, especially once lunchtime rolled around, and Danny and I caught her sitting alone on the far end of the cafeteria with a sack lunch and one of those pieces of spice cake I mentioned.

And I would actually see it for myself when we had music class together at the end of the day, where we had our first auditions. Our teacher, this older gentleman with a real stern stoic expression plastered on his face m told her to sit up closer to the front with it so he could better hear it for himself.

Danny and I were both the obvious guitar players ourselves so we got front row seats ourselves: he was right behind her and I was to her right.

I noticed she didn’t use a pick, either: she had those long nails at her helm instead which got her a funny look from the man up front.

And our teacher said, after a little consideration, “alright. Let’s hear it, Kristina.” 

She lifted the neck and held the body close to her.

She sat on that rickety spindly chair and strummed the guitar strings with those long black opal nails. She plucked it in a way that made me think of wine glasses tinkling together. The riff she played was otherworldly to say in the least, almost in the vein of like “Julia” by the Beatles. It wandered and meandered and made you paint one of those abstract pictures inside of your mind. I looked over at Danny and he was utterly hypnotized by her, like he kept his eyes fixated on her finger work on the neck.

Her expression never changed as she kept at it for five bars and then she moved her fingers up one fret, and then back.

Where he and I were both into rock n roll, she struck me as a jazzy or bluesy kind of girl, just given the complexity of it all. It was definitely complex and yet she kept it simple, like the basis of rock n roll itself.

Complex but easy to understand, just like the girl herself.

She played for about minute when the teacher stopped her.

“That was lovely, Kristina,” he told her, “but I don’t think we can do very much or go very far with just one or two chords.”

She gazed up at him with a quizzical look on her face, like she was challenging him. And it was right then I knew I had to introduce myself to her when I got the chance following auditions.

By day’s end, I wished to hear her sing something—a girl who could play like that and have all the trimmings in check, surely she could sing. And I figured she would do it better than I ever could.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _"here comes the story of the hurricane,  
>  the man the authorities came to blame,  
> for somethin' that he never done.  
> put in a prison cell, but one time he could-a been,  
> the champion of the world."_  
> -"hurricane", bob dylan

I wasn't able to catch up with her following the class but Danny did—once that bell rang, he shot out of that seat like a bullet straight out of a shotgun barrel. He ran faster than I could say the end of this sentence: I had known Danny since we were in diapers, too, so it was shocking to me to see him run so fast out of that room and into the school hallway. I lingered behind so I could pack my things and also speak to our teacher a little better given I was one of four guitar players in that class: there was another kid behind Danny—I don't know if any of you in this very room right now have even heard of him, but his name was John Connelly and he went on to play guitar and sing for a little band called Nuclear Assault, with Danny after Neil fired him from Anthrax.

Danny himself switched to bass down the line as we got older, hence his infamous bassist position in Anthrax, but prior to then, he was Mr. Guitar Player alongside me for a little bit. He and I were two wild and crazy guys back then, and we still are now.

But anyways—I'm going by Danny's words here, but apparently Kristina was the new girl. She and her mom had moved to Las Cruces, New Mexico from Seattle, Washington, of all places, and then to Queens after Las Cruces because her mom divorced in Seattle and then remarried in New York. He asked her what was a ghostly girl like her doing in a sun scorched, barren place like Las Cruces with a separated family.

“Las Cruces is my home,” she said, “and so is Seattle... I was born there, where my mom's from New Mexico. I did like New Mexico but it got lonely without my dad there.”

“So you go to and from Seattle and here whenever you can,” he followed along.

“Exactly.”

“Well, my friend Scott—you might've seen him in class right behind you with the guitar on his lap—”

“Did he ask you to talk to me?” she asked him; and the whole entire time, she was showing him those long black opal nails as if they were claws.

“No, no, no. But he was curious about you, though. And he was going nuts over your guitar here. And I kinda am, too. I like it a lot.”

“It's just something I've carried with me since we moved from Seattle. I've wanted to play ever since I heard songs from Frank and Nancy Sinatra, Bob Dylan and also Pink Floyd. I've only been playing since I was six years old.”

“That's a long time, though! Would you like to meet Scott?”

“I'd love to but I have to get home,” she told him. “Maybe tomorrow?”

“Sure, sure.”

So when Danny caught me coming out of the classroom door, he told me that she wanted to meet me. I was excited to hear that from his mouth. He also told me that the strings on her guitar were all nylon, so I was excited to hear her play for me the next day. I couldn't hardly do my homework that day.

In fact, I didn't sleep very well that night for that reason. I was too excited to fall asleep because I wanted to meet her from the front step in the time being. It was like that excitement you feel prior to the first day of school, but taken to a whole new level.

I finally managed to fall asleep because I was jarred awake by my mom telling me that Danny was outside waiting for me and I would be late if I didn't move about. I was quick to put on a fresh change of clothes, but not tie up my shoes, so I met Kristina with my shoes untied and my hair left unbrushed.

On that day, she had on this long black dress with those Chucks and a little black velvet hat upon her head: she turned her head to one side and I spotted a little light pink rose nestled in the ribbon, and for some reason, it made me think of roses you'd see on cakes in those little bakeries about a block away from there.

Once I stepped outside of our place, she didn't mess around. She took a seat on the curb and once I came within earshot, I could pick up the sound of strumming. Not using a pick—with those long black opal nails Danny and I both were hypnotized by. She strummed those tight nylon strings and the music wandered around us like the colors in a watercolor painting. I can't for the life of me remember what song she played for us, but Danny and I watched her as if she was this classic musician performing for us.

I remember at one point, she glanced up at me and the sun shone down on her face, and it in turn illuminated that head of hair and the skin on her face, and she literally looked like the ghost of an old folk musician from the decade before.

I spotted that rose pendant around her neck, and right behind those little panes of glass, I noticed a metal pendant about the size of her thumb pad. With the light of the sun, I could tell it was in the shape of a skull, like one of those sugar skulls you'd see around Day of the Dead, but it was made of silver, like I could make sight of those expected markings all over the skull. It wasn't until the three of us made our way to school and I caught a second look at it. Right on the crown of the skull's head, I made sight of the words “love Mom & Dad” engraved there.

She had tucked it behind the rose, too. She never explained it to me, either, even when I finally broke through that barrier on the last day of school There was just something about it that made me think. She kept it there but she kept it tucked away behind that piece of glass and silver. It was something that I kept within my line of thought all throughout the school year, even by the time I met my first girlfriend.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _"while down below the trees,  
>  bathed in cool breeze,  
> silver starlight breaks down from night.  
> and so we pass on by the crimson eye,  
> of great god mars as we travel the universe..."_  
> -"planet caravan", black sabbath (one of my absolute favorite songs ever no less)

I was never really one to think that anyone would want to read about me having sex. Like, when I wrote my first book, that was my thought process going into it, was that no one is going to look at me like one of the guys from Motley Crue and think that. But I met my first girlfriend some time in the beginning of high school when I least expected it—apparently Danny met a girl around the same time, and we were right across the hallway from each other no less.

I remember seeing her walk down the hallway with her fine dark hair down past her shoulders. You know when you're a kid and you see a girl or somebody really hot and you can't help but cream your jeans a little bit because they're just that damn hot. You're also a little intimidated to talk to them because of it. You think they're gonna shoot you down, especially when you're a teenage boy who's not very tall or athletic. It was one thing with Danny, who towered above all of us by the time we were in ninth grade, but me? There was no question about it!

Well, that was me with her: I knew I wanted to be with her from the second she strode on past me and I caught a whiff of her perfume. It was like that real feminine perfume, but not like too girly, though: just the right amount of softness and sweetness to make the hair on my head form a little heart with a spare two tendrils. Across the hall, I noticed Danny outright talking to a girl, but I had no idea what she was saying, or what he was saying for that matter.

Every so often I would see Kristina in the hallways and in class, but she never seemed too intent on talking to anyone.

We always saw her on the walk to and from school, and it wasn't until I began talking to that other girl in the halls when I started to yearn for Kristina herself. I wanted to know more about her, especially when I would watch her walk home with that guitar case over her back and she walked alone. I needed a moment alone, away from my new girlfriend and when Danny wasn't yanking for my attention, just so I could get to know her a little better.

I saw that running theme with Joey and I wish I had carried it over onto him as young adults as I did with her as kids still in school.

I finally did scrounge up a moment and much to my own luck, it happened to be a few days before Christmas break and Danny hadn't made it to school for some reason—I forget what, though. She wasn't there that day, either: it happened to be snowing that day, too.

Middle of December in Queens, New York, meaning menorah standing upright in my mom's kitchen, yarmulke on my head, and Christmas lights everywhere else; steam rising up from the sewers on the nights it all fell into the teens and closer to zero; the whole thing about sitting on a couch and awaiting gifts on the fifth night of Hanukkah. The whole shtick and spiel that ushered me right into Christmas. On this particular morning, it was dumping snow: it wasn't a Nor'easter, but it definitely felt like it with the dark gray sky despite it being seven o'clock in the morning and the snow flurries floating down through the apartment buildings.

I was all bundled up and I had trouble keeping my yarmulke on my head and my flyaway hair then. It was either keep it on my head and make my left hand cold from being against the wind or lose it and have warm hands.

And then I met up with Kristina at the corner. She had on this long black coat—I mean this thing was long: the hem extended down to her knees—and these tall black leather boots with one inch heels that made these clomping noises on the pavement. I always had this feeling that if I ran into her at night—I did at one point later on—it would be like running into the Headless Horseman or at least his ghostly accomplice.

It didn't help matters that the snow drifts forming around us made her appear even more ghostly than before. Just the way the grayness of the sky and the neighborhoods around us made her hair shine and wash out to this almost white color. Or maybe it was the snow falling onto her head, but either way she looked so ethereal walking towards me. Ethereal and—somehow erotic. Maybe it was the way in which her hips swayed about, or maybe it was the fact I could see her figure forming from underneath that long black coat, but that was how I felt about it.

I wondered if it was a snow day seeing as we were the only ones walking to school together. She was silent as we made our way up to the driveway, as empty and silent as a graveyard with nothing more to go for it than the snow drifts piling up on the sidewalk.

She then turned to me, her dark eyes contrasted against her blonde hair and her pale face.

“Looks like a snow day,” she told me in a soft voice.

“Looks like it,” I said to her. But we didn't go home: instead, we took out our guitars and began playing under the falling snow. We stood underneath one of the trees at the front of the campus, right in front of the driveway entrance where the busses came in, and we played music for the first snow day of the year.

I played something and then she followed suit, and then vice versa.

At one point, the sky got so dark that I wondered if I could introduce a little heavy metal to her. All I could think of was the riff for “Planet Caravan”, and by the power of telepathy, she followed along with me. It was weird because as far as I knew, she only had dipped her toes in more so the world of folk and jazzy type stuff: metal stood beyond her league. But she backed me up with that soft plucking of those nylon strings.

When the snow began to fall even more, we packed it up and I told her I would see her again, and I told Danny about it the next day on our walk to school together. It was there that Danny came up with the riff for “I Am the Law”, was from my goofing around on my guitar after watching Kristina play around on that little guitar. An inspiration brought on by another inspiration brought on by something completely left field.

Looking back on it, I can't help but thank Kristina for the inspiration, and I wish Anthrax was able to give her a shout out when we recorded and released _Among the Living_ years later; you know, give her a shout out in the liner notes. But once I remembered it, the whole thing was signed and sealed, and I couldn't do it even if I wanted to.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _"your mamma told you that you're not supposed to talk to strangers.  
>  look in the mirror and tell me do you think your life's in danger here?"_  
> -"no more tears", ozzy osbourne

While I was kindling things with my new girlfriend, I had to watch Kristina walk to school by herself. She always looked so lonely doing so, given she strode about the sidewalk with that guitar case slung over her shoulder and she often flashed a glimpse at the other kids on the block as if she wanted to join them, but she never did. I often wanted to coax her to join the three of us, but I never could because whenever presented the opportunity, something happened like she wanted to hold my hand or Danny made a joke or whatever. 

The whole thing went on well past Christmas and into the new year and closer to spring break. But there was in fact one small window within our odd friendship wherein I could break into her world without having to use Danny as a proxy of sorts.

I had put on the little knit bracelet my girlfriend at the time made for me before I stepped outside. Old Man Winter had more than overstayed his welcome but I wasn't going to let a freezing round of rain ruin things for me.

I headed on down the steps to the sidewalk, and I caught the sight of her across the street. Just standing there underneath a tall, scraggly oak tree and not really doing much of anything. She had her head bowed and she looked like she was on the brink of tears.

I had to meet up with her and with Danny, but it was such a strange sight to see her over that way and in such a state no less. I glanced about the block first and then I crossed the street with the hood over my head. I had forgotten my yarmulke given Passover and Easter were coming up, but I needed to talk to Kristina first about things.

“Kristina,” I called to her. She saw me and turned away.

“Kristina? What's wrong?”

The rain started fall on us a little harder and so she turned closer to the tree: it didn't really help matters given the lack of leaves but I understood her logic. She didn't want to be seen. But I caught up with her right as she buried her face in her hands.

“Kristina? What's wrong?” She sniffled and never answered. I glanced around the street to see if someone could help us. No one else around.

“What happened?” I asked her in a gentle voice.

“I don't want to talk about it,” she pled in a muffled voice.

“It's alright, though,” I assured her. “I'll keep it safe with me.” She lifted her face from her hands to show me the reddish tinge around her brow and her cheeks.

“You won't tell your girlfriend?” she asked me with tears in her eyes. I swallowed and looked behind me to make sure no one was eavesdropping on us. I returned to her right as she was wiping tears from her eyes.

“I won't. It'll just be between you and me. I promise.” I brought a hand to her shoulder as a means of comfort. She fetched up a sigh right as a tear streaked down from her face.

“My stepfather had a heart attack last night,” she said in a low voice, “and he locked my guitar in his truck so I can't get to it.”

In fact, I noticed she didn't have her guitar with her that day, either.

“Does your mom have the keys?” I asked her.

“No,” she said, “when it happened—like when he hit the floor, he had his keys in his jeans pocket, and they took him to the hospital with them.” She sniffled and brushed a few more tears away.

“Oh, jeez, I'm so sorry,” I told her, and I opened my arms for her. She lunged for me and bawled right into the front of my jacket.

“You'll get it back, I promise,” I assured her right into her ear.

It was her prized possession, and I knew the thought of losing my guitar would make me feel sick to my stomach, too: I had to comfort her in some fashion.

She was in fact able to get into her stepfather's truck and bring it out, but up until then, she looked naked without the case on her back: she looked like a lost child without it in music class. It was like she wanted to hold onto something the whole entire time, to move her fingers about, and to play along with the rest of us.

But lucky for me, I kept the whole incident between me and Kristina, given I vowed to do so and I would take it to the grave if I had to. I never told Danny about it, given we hurried on to school, and I never told my girlfriend at the time about it. She and I even walked home together given Danny had detention that day.

I remember me and Kristina invented an inside joke when we walked on down the sidewalk back to our houses, and it was, “Scott, you should've reminded me to take my guitar out of the front seat of the truck.”

And it was true: I should have reminded her that no guitarist should be too far away from their instrument.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _"here i stand head in hand, turn my face to the wall.  
>  if she's gone i can't go on: feeling two foot small.  
> everywhere people stare, each and every day,  
> i can see them laugh at me, and i hear them say,  
> 'you've got to hide your love away.'"_  
> -"you've got to hide your love away", the beatles

Before I continue, I want to remark on this cup of coffee here. Charlie knows how to craft a good cup of coffee, like it came right out from the darkest of shadows and beckoned forth with such a rich flavor. It's like he figured out how to cultivate from the coldest and deepest corners of the earth. It's so warm and sensual... like I'm getting hugged. Like I fell ass over teakettle and recovered a bit of the warmth of heart even with nothing more than a blender.

But that's not why you're all here, though. Although—I'm going to get back to that proverbial warm feeling soon enough.

The first time I was fully able to crack into Kristina's mind was when we were about to enter high school.

It was around Christmas and Hanukkah time, and Danny was out somewhere with his dad getting a bass guitar, or at least playing around with one for the ages. I was out getting firewood, of all things, and I happened to meet Kristina at the place where the Christian people usually got the Christmas tree from the lot. I had my yarmulke on my head so she was able to recognize me from clear across the lot.

She looked tired, and like the time she had her guitar case locked up in her stepdad's truck, she looked odd without it on her back. I walked over to her to see the somewhat distraught look on her face. I asked her if everything was alright, and she didn't say anything: she just looked around like we were being watched.

I looked at her funny and repeated the question.

“Is everything okay?”

She then swallowed and stepped away from me and out the front gate of the lot.

“Kristina?” I called after her. “Kristina, is everything alright?”

Next thing I knew, I was chasing after her, this fourteen year old Jew boy with a knit yarmulke on his head—I even clutched onto it given the winds were picking up and that specific part of Queens turned into a wind tunnel at one lick of a stiff breeze from a Nor'easter. I caught up to her and I caught the sound of her crying.

“Kristina! Kristina!”

She ducked around the corner of the shop to where she was out of sight, and I caught up with her right there. She buried her face in her hands and she bawled loud into the palms. I stood right in front of her.

“Kristina—what happened?” I asked her, and I was worried on top of that. She didn't answer but she did cry at a smaller volume, though, which allowed me to catch my breath and come closer to her.

“Kristina... what happened.”

She sniffled real loud and then lifted her head to look at me with those bloodshot eyes.

“What happened,” I asked her a third time.

“I hate this time of year,” she confessed in a broken voice.

“Why is that?”

Her lip trembled and she wiped away more tears. I looked up to the graying sky; I knew it was going to snow soon and my mom would want me back with a stack of firewood and those long matches before the white stuff came in, but my priority at that moment was her, was Kristina. I returned to her right as she adjusted her jacket.

“Tell me everything,” I said to her. “Please. Tell me everything. You can trust me.”

She looked at me with her eyebrows raised and tears brimming her eyes. She then sighed through her nose.

“You're not going to tell anyone about this?” she asked me.

“I promise.” I even raised my hand to that. She sighed again.

“My parents had an unhappy marrige for as long as I could remember,” she started, “and my mom and I finally moved out to New Mexico, and then we came here to New York City. This is going to be the fourth Christmas in a row that we're going to spend as a broken family.”

And when she said that, I looked on at the pendants around her neck. There was that one behind her white rose that caught my eye a couple of years before.

“What's the pendant here, if you mind me asking? 'Love, Mom and Dad'. Tell me about that.”

“This is the last thing they gave me before their divorce.”

“So they stayed together...”

And she said, “yeah. They stayed together for me... until it finally hit the moment where my mom literally couldn't take it anymore. She handed the papers to my dad and—that was it. We left Seattle for the desert in New Mexico and then for New York City because my mom didn't like the desert. I tried to visit my dad last year but no planes were leaving because of the snow... we can't go this year for the same reason, and also because my mom just doesn't have the money to go visit as of yet...”

It reminded me of my parents, how they had such a volatile relationship when I was a little kid and they finally split before my childhood ended and I became a pubescent teenager. Almost beat for beat, like she took the words right out of my mouth, but added the royal pain in the ass that was moving into the fold.

And it was that point I began to fall in love with her.

Granted, I had my girlfriend and things were going wonderful between me and her, but there was something to Kristina here. The both of us were at the mercy of things beyond our control from a young age, and I knew it right then and there. There was so much that we both wanted to do and yet so much held us back. We were both fucked up from a young age. So I turned to her, and I lowered my voice to where she could only hear me and nothing else:

“Kristina—let's keep any secrets we might have with each other between the two of us. I won't tell Danny or my mom or anyone else. I promise.” And I held out my pinky finger for her. She sniffled again, and if I didn't know better, I would have sworn she had ice crystals forming on her eyelashes.

“I promise,” I repeated; and without a sound, she raised her hand and hooked her pinky finger around mine, tight. And then I leaned in to embrace her. Her hair smelled so soft and sweet, like she had just washed it. Much like Charlie's coffee on this particular cold snowy day, there was a strange warmth to her, like she had needed that male touch in her life and I needed to provide her with something of that sort.

It was from that point on that our friendship trekked down this proverbial alleyway that only the two of us could go, and it took place around the corner from where all the rich Christian people shopped at.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _"would you be mine, would you be my baby tonight?  
>  could be kissing my fruit punch lips in the bright sunshine  
> 'cause i like you quite a lot, everything you got, don't you know?  
> it's you that i adore, though i make the boys fall like dominoes."_  
> -"lolita", lana del rey

Over time, she opened up to me. She was this one girl whom I kept visiting every so often when things quieted down on my part and I had nowhere to turn but to her. She became like my safe space of sorts, like I could turn to her and speak to her on just about anything. She was like my gray ghost of sorts, like she always seemed to fade into the background even when we were at school and I caught sight of her down the hallway. That head of light blonde hair was utterly unmistakable, kind of like how Joey's upstate accent is unmistakable. You know it's him once he opens his mouth: I knew it was her once I saw that head of silver.

I remember I took a seat next to Kristina one day in the same spot where I let her cry into my arms because she looked like something was bothering her. I remember it was a warmer day, like closer to spring break and closer to Easter. I made a joke to her about always coming close to her near a Jewish holiday, like Hanukkah and Easter, and it was only a matter of time before she really did it for me on Rosh Hashanah—I can't recall exactly what I had said to her but it got a little chuckle out of her.

“I guess I'm actually an angel to you,” she retorted.

“Well, I dunno 'bout that,” I confessed. “You've got that head of hair there up on your head.”

“Head of hair up on my head?”

“Yeah...” My voice trailed off and she laughed at me.

Understand, at that point, I had my girlfriend then. She and I were together for a while, but we never actually got any further than holding hands. I never even kissed her before. But Kristina inched closer to me there on the curb, and she got close enough to where I could smell her perfume. I felt like I knew her but she also felt so alien to me. There was so much to her I didn't understand at that point—there's still so much to say about her.

But I looked into her eyes, and then I lowered my gaze to her pendants. The both of us walking in a fog and a comedy of errors of sorts, and yet by some power, some black magic, we found each other and we sought each other out via silence.

Her eyes locked onto mine and I noticed her licking her lips at me.

“What'cha doin'?” I dumbly asked her.

“I wanna know how you taste,” she said, and I squirmed a little bit. It was the first time I ever kissed a girl, much less a girl I wasn't in a relationship with. But I sighed through my nose and she moved in closer to me. I held still with one hand rested on my thigh and my other hand grazed on the sidewalk next to me.

Her lips trembled a little bit and then she backed off.

I asked her, “what's wrong?” and she muttered something under her breath.

“What's that?”

“I can't,” she repeated.

“You can't what?”

“I can't do it.”

“What, kiss me? Why not?”

“Because.”

“Because why?”

She shook her head at me.

“I—I don't know,” she said, and I wondered if it had to do with that particular pendant behind the rose in glass.

I looked over my shoulder to make sure we were alone. We were in fact: I returned to her and moved back in closer to her face. She looked at me right in the eye for a good long minute. And then she put her hand on my shoulder. She licked her lips again and I held still. I remember my heart hammered away in my chest, and I could tell she was nervous.

She then closed her eyes.

“I need you to do it,” she whispered in a voice so light, she almost breathed it.

“Why should I do it?” I asked her, puzzled.

“Because I just need you to do it for me. For me.” Something about adding "for me" has always gotten to me, even as a young boy.

I let out a low whistle and then I moved my face into hers. I touched her lips—it was like a grazing, a light brushing of skin on skin. I looked into her eyes and a warm blush spread across her face. I did it again, that time with a bit of firmness.

I kissed her three times before she looked at me dead in the face with her otherwise ghostly face as warm and glowing as a ripe apple.

“Let's not share this with anyone,” I told her. “I'll keep it a secret.”

“Will you?” she asked me.

“Yes. I promise. It's our dirty little secret. Whatever happens between us stays between us. I won't tell it to Danny or anybody.”

“And I won't tell it to anyone,” she promised me with a hooking of her pinky finger around mine.

That was something she took to heart with each and every encounter we had, and it was something I took to heart myself.


	8. Chapter 8

We're really getting deep here now. This is where it gets a little raw for me, a little close to home, I should say. So I’m pouring myself a little more coffee for these next couple of parts because they’re getting heavy.

I walked home with her one day—Danny was sick with a head cold so it was just me and Kristina that afternoon. I can't for the life of me remember what part of the school year it was, but it was cool enough outside, and it had been raining on and off all day long. I had come to school that day holding the hand of my girlfriend, and before she went off to class, she kissed me on the cheek. It was such of my luck that Kristina missed seeing that, but I felt her lips on my skin all day up to that point. To think I was kissing another girl behind her back, it felt wrong and everything that went against my upbringing, but in retrospect, it was something I cherished once Danny and I formed Anthrax together and no girls were willing to kiss us.

She braved it with nothing more than one of those bright yellow slickers and those big black leather boots—she didn't even have a cap upon her head. At one point, the rain had fallen on the crown of her head such that it resembled a little crown of glitter or pixie dust.

We walked along the sidewalk and she still had her guitar case on her back. It felt like a million years since we first met, and yet it felt so soon, too.

I picked her a couple of leaves from the tree over our heads and I handed them to her as sort of a makeshift bouquet. She chuckled at that and tucked the leaves behind her ear.

There came a point where I realized we had gotten lost—we lived in Queens for so long, and I had lived there my whole life, and yet by some black magic I managed to get lost from time to time.

She looked at me and said “is this the right way?”

“I think so?” I confessed. “I swear this was the good way.”

She chuckled at me again, and then we walked up the sidewalk some more. The buildings were starting to look familiar, a little bit anyway. The whole place felt familiar and not from the fact it was Queens. I looked up to the sky and the clouds began to come in all around us. My hair was starting to get long at that point, so when a gust of wind came up behind us it blew a bunch of my hair forward and onto my shoulders.

“This is what happens when Danny gets sick,” I joked to her, which made her chuckle some more.

“You don't have your guitar with you,” she remarked, and I shook my head.

“Nah, I was in a hurry this morning—I'm a bad boy, I know.” She burst out laughing again, and it struck me as odd because she was never like this. She was always so reserved and buttoned down. And it was that point, hearing her laugh, that real feminine type laugh like wine glasses tinkling together, and seeing her head and her face bathed in that afternoon light, that became less of a ghost type girl and more of a young goddess.

When I was in school at that point, I read about the Greek gods and goddesses, and one that always stuck out to me was the goddess of Persephone, the queen of the underworld as well as the goddess of spring. Kristina was kind of like that: when I first met her, she had that solemn look upon her face with the pale ghostly look to boot, like an entity straight out of the crevices of hell, but to hear her laughing at all my lame jokes, she blossomed like the springtime. She had become the goddess Persephone right there, just walking home right next to me.

We turned a corner and I recognized the lot that held all of those Christmas trees, except it was just a plain stretch of pavement before us. She looked at me with her eyebrows raised.

“What'cha thinkin'?” I asked her. She gestured for me to follow her, and so I did. She led me to that alleyway on the other side of the lot.

“What's going on?” I asked her again.

“Scott—I need to confess something to you. I think I'm in love with you.”

“How cool is that!” I said. “I think I'm in love with you, too.”

“But I'm serious, though,” she insisted. She slung her guitar case around and lay it down to open it, and she took out her guitar. She plucked the strings with her fingers, and then she sang it to me—forgive me, I can't sing worth shit, that's why we have Joey:

“ _The guilty undertaker sighs, the lonesome organ grinder cries... the silver saxophones say I should refuse you. the cracked bells and washed-out horns blow into my face with scorn, but it's not that way, I wasn't born to lose you. I want you, I want you, I want you, so bad. Honey, I want you!_ ”

I didn't know what to say to her right then. My girlfriend at the time was out of the question at that point. She sang to me. She spoke to me in my language. So of course I threw my arms around her and kissed her hard on the mouth. That was the first time I ever kissed with a bit of tongue. She wasn't too particular about it, but once she ran her tongue out of her mouth she returned to me once more. I kissed her with such passion that she had to move her guitar off to the side to bring me in closer.

I knew we were close to home right then just because I had remembered we were within range of the lot with the Christmas trees. Christmas trees meant the search for firewood. Firewood meant home. I could double back through that alleyway and find my way back to my apartment complex.

“Not a soul,” she whispered to me before we went our separate ways.

Actually, come to think of it, it was Rosh Hashanah. Within a few hours, the sun would set and it would be Rosh Hashanah. I remember because I left my yarmulke back at home: I left in a hurry that morning, and such that I forgot both my yarmulke and my guitar.

I had my first New Year's kiss, and it so happened to go down on the Jewish New Year.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lyrics to i want you by bob dylan!


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _"under the arc of a weather stain boards  
>  ancient goblins, and warlords  
> come out the ground, not making a sound.  
> the smell of death is all around  
> and the night when the cold wind blows:  
> no one cares, nobody knows."_  
> -"pet sematary", ramones

I still remember the two days Charlie and Frankie met her, and I remember them real crisp and clear like they just happened. You know, I'm just looking out the bay window here at the snow falling, and I know when I make the drive back down to New York City to catch the next ferry it's going to be hellish. But I believe I can make it there to drop off the pendant out there.

I mention the snow because it was snowing both days when Charlie and Frankie met her. The day Charlie met her Danny and I introduced her to him.

It was the last day before Christmas break in... I can't recall which year of high school, but it was dumping snow much like how it is at the moment. Danny, Charlie, and I were talking about forming a band together, after which Danny told me about this disease called “anthrax” in a biology textbook on our walk home. It just sounded malicious and sinister, perfect for a metal band: around that time, metal bands, the ones trying to be like Motorhead and going in a faster, much swifter direction compared to Black Sabbath, had names that ended with “-er”, like “Motor-er” or “Stupider-er” or something like that. So this name that we had would set us apart from the rest from the get-go, and that was something of a theme that would later follow us when we got to recording _Fistful of Metal_.

Anyways, Kristina moseyed up to me and Danny alongside us, and she had her head bowed a bit from the snow falling. The snow meanwhile made her eyes pop: she actually resembled a ghost with that long almost white blonde hair streaming behind her and her pale face, and her eyes just added to the contrast.

Danny asked her, “where's your hat?”

“I didn't think it would snow so much today,” she admitted. She looked over at Charlie, who dwarfs the both of us, and his long dark tendrils behind his head and that deep cleft in his chin, and showed him a smile. I think he saw the guitar case on her back because he returned the favor to her.

“Mind me asking who this little lady is?” he asked us, given he attended a different high school from the three of us.

And so Danny went, “Charlie, this is Kristina. She's a guitar player.”

“Would you be willing to play metal with us?” Charlie asked her.

“She played 'Planet Caravan' with me one time,” I said to him.

“I dunno if I wanna be in a band, though,” she confessed.

“Well, we'll keep our eye on you,” Charlie told her with a wink. Obviously, it never worked out but there was a possibility that she could be with us as our guitarist. That would really set us apart, next to Joey's powerful voice in contrast to the music we play: have one of the members be a woman!

And it took me a little while for it to sink in on my part, but Charlie had a thing for her. The days we had her alongside us, he was drawn to her and that guitar case of hers. One time, we all sat next to each other on one of those brick planters awaiting for the school bus, and I swore it would snow like any second, and he nestled up next to her. It was there I felt that sort of “protectiveness”, if you will. I wanted to be closer to her. I wanted to sit next to her there.

It didn't help matters that Charlie had plopped himself right in between us. This big lug between me and Kristina. He had this twinkle in his eye every time she spoke up, either to him or Danny or myself. I actually got rather protective of her once Frankie entered the picture.

Danny had just been let go from his position in Anthrax because of Neil being so damn petty about things, and Charlie and I did Neil justice and showed him the door, but at that point Danny had formed Nuclear Assault as like our next door neighbors of sorts, and Frankie took his place as bassist. He was this young baby faced kid fresh out of high school with a penchant for baseball; meanwhile, I had gotten engaged to my girlfriend upon graduation. But I'm gonna say this right now: the whole thing felt like a fluke from the start, because my heart was with Kristina, especially when Frankie started hitting on her one day.

Again, it was snowing and I can’t remember the context but she walked into the studio one day looking for me, and Frankie was real kind to her, almost “too kind” if you will. But I took a peek into the room and he was showing off his arms and his chest to her, even being all wrapped up in a heavy sweater. I ducked out of there because I was feeling protective of her again, and also because Charlie put on a pot of coffee. I poured myself a cup and I stood in the room in silence for a moment, and then I turned around to overhear Charlie talking to our producer Carl in regards to our finding a new lead singer.

Almost like clockwork, she scurried up to me with a flustered look on her face, the few times I ever saw her flustered, too.

“What's up?” I asked her as I set down my cup on the counter next to me.

“I need you to kiss me,” she said in a haste.

“Why?” I lowered the tone of my voice.

“Just do it.” She took one look at the engagement band on my left hand and then she looked back up at me.

“Do it,” she repeated. I was reticent, but then I saw Frankie over in the doorway. He was facing the other way, but I saw him there. I put my lips onto hers with a bit of conviction: I even put my arms around her to make it look like she and I were making it out. It felt so wrong but it felt so right and so good to boot, too.

Next thing I knew, we were in fact making out, and Frankie had gone. He never saw us, either, like he never mentioned it to me whenever we got into conversation with each other in private. All I knew was I had this full fledged romance with Kristina on the side and no one knew about it.

And for years, I took it as “I'm going to be buried with this.” But it wasn't until recent when I had a change of heart of sorts. I needed to come clean about it.

And no, it wasn't her suicide that triggered it: if it did, I would have come clean about it sooner.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _"i really wanna know you,  
>  i'd really wanna go with you.  
> i really wanna show you:  
> that it won't take long, my lord."_  
> -"my sweet lord", george harrison

The last time I saw Kristina before her suicide was right before Joey joined us, and then after that I didn't see her again. She just disappeared after that.

It was literally one day before Carl flew upstate and scouted him out in that little club, and literally one day before Joey's band Bible Black called it a day. I had just gotten off the phone with my fiancee at the time, and I forget what I had told her but it was that conversation I really began to feel the first tinges of cold feet. I was starting to regret my decision of popping the question to her and asking for her hand, because I knew in my heart of my hearts that it wasn't with her.

So I picked up the phone and I dialed Kristina's number. I was alone: Frankie and Charlie were on the other side of the studio with Jon and Carl was preparing on flying upstate because he had a lead on Joey. Now that I think about it, I always found it odd that I always managed to come together with her whenever no one was looking. Holding that phone up to my ear, it doesn't sound as romantic as when I put it into words, but I actually thought of her as a ghost at that point. A ghost and the goddess Persephone.

One thing that always got to me was how no one else seemed to wonder about me and her, like no one ever asked me about her, and it was when Charlie pointed it out to me when I began to wonder about her and her place in our periphery.

“Kristina always comes to you,” was what he told me that one time. “She always goes back to you.”

“She always goes back to Danny, too,” I replied.

“Well, yeah, but every time I've seen her, she always gravitates to you, though.” And it wasn't until I got off the phone with her that last time when I realized he was right. Even with the amount of time he had spent with her.

I called her to see what she was doing and if she wanted to hang out for a little bit while our producer was flying upstate to scout out our new lead singer. She had nothing going on so she agreed to do so.

And she showed up at the studio within about twenty minutes of me hanging up. She was quick to get there, especially since the drive from Queens to Manhattan is no walk in the park, especially back then in the early eighties.

I met her outside, and I could feel the rain coming: this was in the middle of September give or take, before Rosh Hashanah, so the rains were upon us. The wind blew up between us so a bunch of leaves blew around us. I didn't know if I was going to have another chance given I was going to be a married man soon, and I had no clue as to what her plans were. But all I knew was my sentiment was long overdue, especially given how much time and effort I had leant to her. I let her cry in front of me and I let her be herself with me. I needed to let her have it.

So I stood in front of her, dressed in my Agnostic Front shirt and big black Doc Martens and long thick dark hair, and I held onto her shoulders and looked right into those dark eyes.

“I just want you to know that I love you very much,” I said to her, “and I'll always love you no matter what happens to either of us. One of us could be dead and I'll still find a way to love you, even if it means—you know, one of us being dead.”

And she said, “Scott—I can't tell you how long I've been waiting to hear you say that to me, too.” And without another word, I put my lips to hers.

It was my romance with her, and I didn't want to let it go, and I knew she didn't want to let it go, either. But she told me she had to leave. She was going out to the Hamptons. I vowed to go pick her up if things didn't work out with Joey, like if something happened to Carl or we needed somebody else, or we needed to go in a different direction. I could call off my engagement and run off with her. She could be our guitar player like what Charlie wanted her to be.

But it didn't happen. She got back into her car and drove off to Long Island.

And I didn't hear about her again until Danny called me that one day fourteen years later. And her rose pendant found its way to me.

And with nothing more, I better make my way down to Ellis Island to drop off this pendant. It's been good, Boston.

But now I have to do one more thing for her.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _”did you see the frightened ones?  
>  did you hear the falling bombs?  
> the flames are all long gone, but the pain lingers on...”_  
> -“goodbye blue sky”, pink floyd

I’m driving through heavy snow at the moment—it’s a long time coming for me to even so much as get me into the car. Charlie had come along at some point to see me off, but I missed him. All I have on my mind is dropping off the rose pendant out on Ellis Island; but watching the snow, I’m a little unsure if I can even make it out there, especially since the drive down to New York City itself is three and a half hours. I have made the drive down before and in the snow but I have my worries.

I don’t waste any time getting on the road: lucky for me, it’s still light out but I know I’m going to be pressed for time once I catch up to the ferry. I button up my coat and tug the hood over my head before I step out to the bitter Northeast cold.

There was one memory I had left out of my story, and it was the time I actually saw Kristina perform live up on stage. It was right before Among the Living came out, and there was a little bit of downtime prior to the release date.

Joey and Charlie probably recall it better than I can because she interacted with them more while she stood up there because they had seats closer to her, but I stood right in front of her, down in fourth row. She looked right at me with those dark eyes and flashed me a wink, puckered her lips at me, and then topped it off with a shy smile. I had gotten married at that point but I still recalled the promise I had told her.

I ached to escape with her out to the backwoods for a little bit and then she could be our guitarist. Our guitarist with Joey as our lead singer.

She picked up the neck of that guitar and played that wandering riff I recalled from our school days.

I even mouthed the words along with her sort of as like her teleprompter.

I wanted to catch up with her backstage but I never could make it. And if I recall correctly, it was still wintertime, and it snowed that night, too.

I think about this with every mile down to New York City. My hope is that no one takes my affair with Kristina as something worthy of gossip. As I’ve said, I never was of the type to assume anyone would want to read about me having sex, and yet I was a thrash metal guy. No girls wanted us... so she was special.

Kristina needed to be protected, and yet I failed to do that. I failed to protect her, from the outside world and also, from herself.

And yet, there is nothing I can do, especially now. All I can do is make this drive through the snow and the soaking pavement.

Three hours and with not much to think about, except to hum “Planet Caravan” to myself the whole way down.

Within time, I recognize the Statue of Liberty off in the distance, right up against the cold gray. I cross over into the state of New York and I reach into my inner coat pocket to feel it there. I sigh through my nose.

I never wanted to do this, but after what happened with Charlie and I knew Frankie wouldn’t be willing to do so, either, and Danny was off in his own world now that Nuclear Assault is retired, there isn’t much more choice at the moment. I’m making good time and thus, I know for a fact I can make it out there.

I take the bypass headed towards the harbor. I have the right amount of money to do it.

Signs for the harbor emerge through the impending fog, and I think back to when Kristina and I played that song in the snow.

It’s stuck in my head as I roll up to the harbor parking lot. I still have a faint memory of Frankie and his girlfriend finding Charlie laying on the sidewalk about six feet away from the entrance: they described him as “weak and dried out... like old meat.” I still don’t understand how the death wish passed over to Charlie, other than Kristina had some kind of contract no one knew about. All I knew was she needed to be talked about and then properly put to bed.

I board the ferry and take the first seat inside of the warm interior. There isn’t a lot of people onboard because of the weather, but it’s still something to write home about.

The snow is really coming down upon us as we made our way across those cold black waters. I keep my head bowed so no one will recognize me. When we get close to the island, I tuck my hand into the inside pocket for the pendant.

I’m the first one off and the first one to take a look up at Lady Liberty, all dark green and frigid with the blizzard. I hurry over to the closest cement block holding her down to the earth and I duck behind it so I’m out of sight. I only have a few minutes before the ferry leaves again so I need to make this quick.

There’s a bank of snow already piled up on the cement. Perfect!

I use my hand to nudge the snow out of the way and I rest the pendant on the freezing cold cement. Like a tombstone.

I rest my hand next to it and close my eyes. I can’t believe I’m letting her go, after all this time. But it’s time to bring her home.

“Goodbye, Kristina,” I say aloud. “I’ll always love you—even when one of us is gone. Coming up behind you.” I nudge a bit of the snow over to make a horseshoe shape, like a makeshift cocoon of sorts around the pendant. I stand there for a minute and think back when I kissed her on Rosh Hashanah, like she had blessed me in some way.

Indeed, something brushes against me, something cold and yet delicate. I swear I hear her voice as it breathes into my ear: “Run away with me, Scott.”

I turn my head for a look and there’s no one there. But the ferry is about to leave. I button up my coat and fix my hood, and I hurry back to the dock. I step back onboard with seconds to spare. As we pull away, I take one glimpse back to Ellis Island. She’ll always be there, even if her heart is now six feet under.


End file.
